Hero-of-Time

I loved Too Human. Played the Hell out of it when it was finally released. It was one of those games that got slated by critics but I really enjoyed.

I may have to track them down and give them a whirl. Both are on the PSP and the first was on the PS1 mini, which I never did pick up.

Have you ever played the first 2 games, @Happenstance? Just wondering how they play in comparison to the newer titles. I can't imagine they have aged well, especially the original game.

Not at all. I didn't even realise they were linked!

Finished the game in the early hours of this morning. Having now played the modern trilogy, I think this is my second favourite, maybe a tie with Golden at a push. That's not to say its a bad game. I loved my time with it, its just that I think 5 is absolutely amazing and this one certainly doesn't reach the highs of that entry. When I play a JRPG I'm usually there for the characters and story. The characters in this game great and I loved pretty much all of them but the story takes far too long to get going. When the narrative does start to pick up, it has pacing issues, with long periods going by where nothing is moving forward. Persona 4 Golden had this same issue as well. The repeatative loop of doing a dungeon every month is fine if you have a narrative carrot dangled in front of you but that doesn't happen enough in both of these games but it's something that was fixed in Persona 5. I think part of this issue is a me problem though. As I said, I'm here for the main narrative and in JRPGs most of the sidequest activities don't interest me at all. A lot of the time I find them to be all filler and no killer. The Social Link aspect of these games are a huge part of them but most of them I don't really care for. You do get a few good stories out of them, the dying man (Sun Persona) being one of them, but most are just schoolyard nonsense. I guess it's probably an age thing. I'm pushing 42 and I just don't care for the teeny bopper side of things. Had I still been in my youth then I no doubt would have been more invested in these things. When the main story was firing on all cylinders it was a fantastic ride. This is one of those games I'm very happy to have played. Having not got into the series until the 5th entry (played 4 when it was out on PS2 but it wasn't until after 5 that I eventually finished Golden on the Vita), it's great to go back and play through one of the fan favourite entries of the series. That's another JRPG down out of the early heavy hitters of this year. It was certainly more enjoyable than FFVII: Rebirth but I have a feeling that once I get around to Like a Dragon and Granblue Fantasy (still waiting for this to drop) that one of these will take the crown.

I picked this up at the end of last week. The game dropped to a more reasonable £35 and so I decided to snap it up. Really enjoyed playing this, which shouldn't be that much of a surprise as I do enjoy the series. The story mode was a decent length and has you going through Jin's history with his father, as well as everyone who is connected to their bloodline. Awesome cutscenes and plenty of anime type power up moments were to be had. During the campaign you are forced to switch characters a lot of the time. Usually I'm not a fan of this but the game has a feature which makes things easier to use characters who's movements you aren't familiar with. By pressing the L1 button you can switch to a mode that allows the game to string together combos for you by just pressing a couple of buttons. It made things much easier and allowed me to carry on through the story without get bogged down into learning new move sets. You can use this in any mode, even online. There's also a standard arcade mode which unlocks the story and endings for other characters. This is more like what you seen it the classic Tekken games, where you are pitted against the AI in a series of back to back fights and then get an ending scene as a reward. I played a little bit of the online modes, purely because I needed to for the platinum, and found it to be quite fun. Connection speeds were spot on and you could tell it players were using wired or wireless and then opt in or out if their connections were garbage. This is something any online games should have, especially ones that require fast and precise movements. I also toyed around with the avatar stuff as well. At first I found these lobbies to be quite dead and imagined most were just playing online straight from the menu but once I turned on the crossplay feature these lobbies burst into life and avatars were running all over the place. Great game. I mean, it's Tekken and if you've liked past games then this one will be right up your street.

New trailer.

After watching the above video the other night, I sat and watched Not For Resale yesterday evening. It's a video game documentary I watched and spoke about in the early 2020's and it's about retro gaming, collecting and the rise of digital. I was curious to give it another watch after everything that has happened since. There's a section in the documentary about the indie game movement and how digital has been a great thing for them due to breaking down the barriers of not needing a physical copy of the game and being able to publish themselves. Fast forward to today and the bubble has very much burst for a lot of them. There are countless stories from these developers how it's so hard to make a living now, mainly because the barrier for entry is so low that the market is completely flooded. Even more so now than it was back when this was filmed. You had the owner of Limited Run Games explain why he wanted to start the company. He said words to the effect of he was tired of seeing garbage games on the shelf and being persevered when a lot of digital only games that were genuinely good were being left on digital marketplaces. Again, fast forward to today and his attitude has clearly changed. There are lots of LR releases that are very questionable in terms of their quality. It was great listening to the owners of the retro stores and hearing their passion for the hobby. Sadly, some of the stores had to close due to the death of the high street and that was back before the pandemic hit. I'd be curious to know how many of them are still running now. Probably not a lot. One owner who was interviewed said when people ever ask him how to go about opening a retro gaming store his answer was always "Don't!" I felt sorry for this one guy who brought in a massive Saturn collection that was in mint condition. Had he held on to all of that stuff for an extra year or so (I imagine the documentary was filmed in 2018-2019) he would have made a fortune during the pandemic when retro prices went through the roof. I dunno if I could ever bring myself to sell a collection that size. I suppose it depends on what was going on in my life at the time. The guy was looking to get married and buy a house and so needed the extra cash for those things. It was great watching it again but it highlighted just how much things have changed (both retro gaming and general gaming industry) since it's original release, even though not much time has passed since then and now. It did get my retro game collecting itch going again though. I may have to have a browse on eBay in the coming days.

A few details about the game have been released.

Indeed.

My team now consists of a.. Currently in the month of September and just past the floor 100 mark in Tartarus. Story is still lacking for my liking. A few new Big Bads have shown up but the overall plot hasn't moved forward that much. Speaking of Persona, I found this rare piece on ebay earlier today. LINK

Argos are selling some Switch games at reduced prices. Fire Emblem Engage £24.99 Disney Illusion Island £19.99 Pikmin 3 £24.99

Indeed I am. Well done.

MetalJesusRocks asks a few others whether or not physical games will die out and if that happens, would they continue to play games?

Back from work and so it's time to go...

I think the earliest memory I have of this being done was when my eldest brother played Shining in the Darkness on the Mega Drive. He used to draw out the maps, Etrian Odyssey style.

Wait...you write in English?

I'll give it a look. I'm curious to see what all the fuss is about.

To be fair, Rebirth has been a miss for a lot of people.

You still plugging away with this, @drahkon?

Me watching the above Gameboy video...